Tunisia: Ennahda urges government to announce reality of economy

TUNIS, TUNISIA – JULY 26: Farouk Bouasker, president of the Independent High Authority for Elections, holds a press conference to announce the unofficial results of the 25 July referendum on the new constitution in Tunis, Tunisia on July 26, 2022. ( Yassine Gaidi – Anadolu Agency )

The Ennahda Movement issued a statement on Friday calling on the Tunisian government to reveal the reality of the economic, financial and social situation and to “stop adopting misleading policies”.

The movement called on the country’s government: “To seriously focus on providing basic materials that have been absent for months, monitor random price increases, retreat from the price increases for school materials for this year and take into account the purchasing power of citizens.”

The movement also called on the authorities to: “Stop the populist discourse based on arbitrarily accusing the former governments of corruption and hinting of embezzling public money without providing any evidence.”

READ: Tunisia: Administrative Court rejects 2 appeals against Constitution referendum results

On Wednesday, President Kais Saied affirmed: “The necessity of activating the legal effects of every violation with regard to the donations that the people were supposed to benefit from.”

This came after Saied reviewed the report prepared by the Ministry of Finance on the results of the task of inventorying and controlling the status of loans and donations granted to the state and public institutions during the last ten years.

Saied considered that: “The numbers mentioned in the report are large, especially with regard to the donations that their natural beneficiary, the Tunisian people, were supposed to obtain.”

Tunisia is suffering an economic and financial crisis that has been exacerbated due to the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine, in addition to the political instability that the country has experienced since President Saied imposed exceptional measures on 25 July, 2021.

READ: Ghannouchi: Tunisia may ban Ennahda from running in elections, or dissolve it

Last June, the annual inflation in Tunisia surged to its highest rate in three decades amid sharp increases in commodity prices, mainly caused by the repercussions of the war in Ukraine.

The National Institute of Statistics shared that annual inflation rose to 8.1 per cent last June, compared to 7.8 per cent in May.

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